There is no question that Biden did, during a visit to Kiev in late 2015, threaten to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Shokin was dismissed. But the vice president, who was leading the Obama administration’s effort to fight corruption in Ukraine, did the country a favor by hastening Shokin’s departure, Kaleniuk said, since he had failed to properly investigate corrupt officials.
“Shokin was fired because he attacked the reformers within the prosecutor general’s office,” Kaleniuk said, “reformers who tried to investigate corrupt prosecutors.”
One of the most prominent cases Shokin had failed to pursue was against Yanukovych’s environment and natural resources minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, who had oversight of all Ukrainian energy firms, including the largest independent gas company, Burisma, which he secretly controlled through shell companies in Cyprus. After Zlochevsky was forced from office along with Yanukovych in 2014, his gas company appointed Hunter Biden to its board.
“Shokin was fired,” Kaleniuk added, “because he failed to do investigations of corruption and economic crimes of President Yanukovych and his close associates, including Zlochevsky, and basically it was the big demand within society in Ukraine, including our organization and many other organizations, to get rid of this guy.”
[...] Hunter Biden’s presence on the board of a Ukrainian company suspected of corruption first became a political issue three months later, in December 2015, when his father visited Kiev and threatened to withhold financial aid unless the prosecutor general was fired for blocking corruption investigations. As James Risen reported in The Times that month, the vice president’s spokesperson insisted that the younger Biden’s business in Ukraine would have no influence over his father’s determination to push for more vigorous enforcement of anti-corruption laws.
[...] Although there is no evidence that Joe Biden did anything to shield Burisma from scrutiny, the fact that he failed to dissuade his son from helping to launder the reputation of a Ukrainian company widely suspected of corruption is hardly praiseworthy. The former vice president says that he simply never discussed his son’s business interests in Ukraine, but maybe he should have.
The bad news, for Biden, is that the false nature of the allegation about his role in Ukraine won’t stop Donald Trump and his supporters from treating it like a major scandal, hoping to tarnish the Democrat currently leading the race to face him in the 2020 election. And since the setting for the supposed scandal is a part of the world few Americans have much knowledge of, it could be as hard to refute in the minds of voters as the attack on John Kerry’s Vietnam war record launched by the Swift Boat Veterans in 2004, or the weapons-grade innuendo about Hillary Clinton’s role in Benghazi generated by House Republicans.
As Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director for President Barack Obama, explained on a recent episode of Pod Save America flooding the internet with baseless conspiracy theories can, unfortunately, be good politics. “This is how Trump won,” Pfeiffer said. “Which is: feed conspiracy theories to the base and just throw so much shit around that the folks in the middle say, ‘Well, it’s all confusing, I don’t know who’s right, I don’t have really any way of finding out — certainly the media isn’t capable of telling me — so I’m going to default to my natural expectations which is, both sides are corrupt liars.’
“And when the public thinks that both sides are corrupt liars,” Pfeiffer added, “that inures to the advantage of the corrupt liar in the race.”
There are a host of debatable characterizations presumed in that quoted excerpt. If you do not see the premises to the entire quote, read it again. (I was not there to see Osama's body, ever, but they said they dumped the bullet riddled corpse at sea, immediately; but I would hesitate to doubt it happened exactly as those there at the time say it happened. But if Seal Team members started saying, "Not shot, set up in a condo in Dubai," that goes against the standard version, and then there might always linger doubt of who's being truthful. It however is one against the other, obscured by distance and recent cultural factors suggesting knowing which belief set to hold credible ends up problematic for members of the public.)
This is taking on the appearance of a he said, she said putzing match where two sides say incompatible things about a distant situation with natural obscurity; wherein claims and counter claims are made; all evidence being testimonial and contradictory; with no middle ground. The sure thing is that if Biden is the Democrats' nominee Trump flaks and forces will pedal that Ukranian politicians' version casting greatest doubt on Biden's character and his family's side.
Biden's side counter-argues by asserting different multiparty third party motives and conduct and trustworthiness - two asserted sets of facts, one or neither to be trusted; with the putzing match not being among our national political figures, but among political opponent groups in Ukraine. Ukrainian third party involvements raise key belief issues within the swearing contest among total strangers to our nation. That being noted, the balance of the post below this bracketed item is the original, as posted prior to discovery here of The Intercept's having posted as it did.]
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In October 2018 before the midterm elections, Breitbart was at the "Creepy Joe" throttle, slinging mud, and noting how Trump then was handling things in Nevada at the time. As expected. That gaming, hence, matters to Republicans.
What matters here has been a subject of multiple posts; and there is Hunter Biden, Wikipedia, VanityFair, and The Hill fleshing out yet another thing Trump, Breitbart, and the Republicans can dance around in a way less than favorable to Joe Biden, candidate. Given Democratic Party reaching toward the Trump offspring, payback time will abound that way, for this allegedly "electable" candidate being contrasted to Trump. A flavor for the most salacious bad-soap-opera piling onto Hunter Biden by those forces Trump uses might be foreseen per WashExaminer posting in January of this year. Not good.
Then, from progressives' perspectives, the man has a history of years in the Senate to compare to Bernie's contemporaneous service, a factor which cannot be silenced during Democratic primary/caucus times. That is a history akin to Biden's putting students and families behind the eight-ball in favor of credit card interests when bankruptcy law last was rewritten, (with that situation having been noted in earlier Crabgrass posting).
This is not a people friendly person. Despite words, actions show a less than electable pattern. The latest, funding Joe via big wallet bonding stuff arranged by a Comcast lobby honcho stands as yet another view of a less than people friendly overly aggressive "sharp" dealing firm, putting cash into a less than people friendly candidate while hoping to sell a name-recognition fiction story.
Will it sell? Will you buy in? Would you tell others to buy into Biden?
Electability fiction is at this very moment being churned out, but at insult to truth. And if you encounter any report of preference polling; see if you can pin down the demographics of the sample group, sample size, question structure, and other factors that can cause biased push polling of a bandwagon for you to join, a bandwagon which in truth does not really exist.
Any poll ignoring the comparative size of the younger segment of our population with bias toward older voters is a poll deserving distrust. Any poll suggesting Trump base crossover during primary time may be unreliable as an omen of any vote shifting when November "real voting" happens (and the Trump base does what it did in 2016). Trying to win over a number of angry white older folks could be tried via Biden being the nominee; but those wearing MAGA caps will not swap them for Joe hats, while people energized by and trusting in Bernie and Elizabeth Warren may not be energized into a vote for Biden any more than they sensed great need to go with Hillary. Losing many easy votes to believe in a chance at a handful of hard ones is --- stupid.
___________UPDATE___________
Breitbart jumps quickly upon NYT May 1, 2019, report; Ukraine money matters a concern, money issues going beyond personality and personal conduct issues.
From NYT:
Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies By Kenneth P. Vogel and Iuliia Mendel - May 1, 2019
WASHINGTON — It was a foreign policy role Joseph R. Biden Jr. enthusiastically embraced during his vice presidency: browbeating Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt government to clean up its act. And one of his most memorable performances came on a trip to Kiev in March 2016, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.
[..] Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor general.
Hunter Biden was a Yale-educated lawyer who had served on the boards of Amtrak and a number of nonprofit organizations and think tanks, but lacked any experience in Ukraine and just months earlier had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. He would be paid as much as $50,000 per month in some months for his work for the company, Burisma Holdings.
[...] The former vice president’s campaign said that he had always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, [...] But new details about Hunter Biden’s involvement, and a decision this year by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general to reverse himself and reopen an investigation into Burisma, have pushed the issue back into the spotlight just as the senior Mr. Biden is beginning his 2020 presidential campaign.
They show how Hunter Biden and his American business partners were part of a broad effort by Burisma to bring in well-connected Democrats during a period when the company was facing investigations backed not just by domestic Ukrainian forces but by officials in the Obama administration. Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma prompted concerns among State Department officials at the time that the connection could complicate Vice President Biden’s diplomacy in Ukraine, former officials said.
“I have had no role whatsoever in relation to any investigation of Burisma, or any of its officers,” Hunter Biden said Wednesday in a statement. “I explicitly limited my role to focus on corporate governance best practices to facilitate Burisma’s desire to expand globally.”
Hunter Biden, who left Burisma’s board last month, was one of many politically prominent Americans of both major parties who made money in Ukraine over the last decade. In several cases — most notably that of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman — that business came under criminal investigation that exposed a seedy side of the lucrative Western consulting industry in Ukraine.
No experience as a basis for being on up to fifty grand a month to be on an energy business board in Ukraine, but there, son of the sitting VP who assumed a policy and diplomatic role in Ukraine, at the same time, rather than forebearance. Smoke? Fire? Beltway business as usual?
Cause to embrace a Biden-for-President position, or to want to wait and see other candidates and what they offer?
Elizabeth Warren is free of any such questions. Bernie is free of any such questions. Beto, Kamala, and the remainder of the pack so far have had nothing of this prominence surface about them and family and cash.
The NYT item's lead image is Biden in Kiev at the time Hunter was receiving board compensation from the Ukrainian energy firm. He did not have to be there. Hillary was Secretary of State under Obama. It was her portfolio. The State Department maintained a professional experienced payroll throughout the Clinton tenure. Many could have handled diplomacy in the normal course of government affairs.
FURTHER: In a more slanted choice of reporting, Breitbart wrote:
According to the Times, Hunter Biden was paid “as much as $50,000 per month in some months” as a board member of Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm owned by a member of the Ukrainian oligarchy.
Vice President Biden was heavily involved in mediating U.S. policy towards Ukraine. When a Ukrainian prosecutor launched a corruption investigation into the energy company Hunter Biden was board member of, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to the country if the Ukrainian government did not fire the prosecutor. As John Solomon of The Hill reported, Biden’s threat would have thrown the former Soviet republic into insolvency at a time when Ukraine was fending off threats from Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
In a speech last year before the Council on Foreign Relations, the former vice president bragged about his successful use of these strong-arm tactics to get the prosecutor fired, saying that he told the Ukrainians, “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” Biden then boasted, “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”
[...] Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian energy firm and his sweetheart deals with China’s communist regime while his father was vice president were exposed in Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book Secret Empires.
In an interview last month on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight, Schweizer explained, “Joe Biden was the Obama administration’s point-person on policy towards Ukraine. He steered $1.8 billion in aid to that government and while he was doing so, his son got a sweetheart deal with this energy company that — we’ve been able to trace over just a 14-month period — paid $3.1 million into an account where Hunter Biden was getting paid.”
“Suffice to say, Hunter Biden has no background in Ukraine,” Schweizer noted. “He has no background in energy policy. There’s really no legitimate explanation as to why he got this deal with this energy company, other than the fact his father was responsible for doling out money in Ukraine itself.”
“It’s a huge problem,” Schweizer added. “And it goes to this question of corruption and potential payoffs and bribes that these foreign entities were making to the Bidens in exchange for hopefully getting favorable treatment.”
Has there already been a Trump tweet about Hunter Biden, or are things hanging fire in the Oval Office until the Democratic Party chooses its "most electable" candidate; as well as the one who could best contrast with the Trump family and its way of dealing?
Presumably the aim among inner party and outer party Democrat functionaries is to pick the candidate who can best energize a voting block that was not enamored of Hillary Clinton and the Podesta brothers, Goldman Sachs speeches and lobbying and all that. It seems sensible that one who is electable need not rely upon lobbyists to hold fundraisers because he/she is a peoples' favorite making it on small donor love. In a sane world electability should attach to one who declines to have big money types run fundraisers, perhaps using a small donor network of dedicated volunteers to carry water.
1. Comcast fundraising initial Biden cash. 2. Hunter Biden having questionable business interests from which Joe did not distance himself. 3. A beatifically eloquent candidate who faced down Biden on bankruptcy law matters Biden promoted years back in the Senate, championing a bill which was unfavorable to the little guy.
WTF does "electability" mean, if ones who rule the roost in mainstream media and the Democrat's inner party elite are going to bandy the term around? Biden? Or will the primary electorate put some different meaning into play, one that might raise the flag loudly if the super delegate thumb gets on the scale after a first convention delegate vote not yielding a majority for any one candidate might occur? Would the super delegates dare to flout their strength against a clear popular will? Or do they want Trump out, really want Trump out, for a shot at the spoils if not for any higher reason?
Have the popcorn ready, the soul of the Democratic Party, if there is one, shall irrevocably be exposed.
FURTHER: Schweiezer was responsible in the 2016 presidential election cycle for having written the book on the Trump negative research effort on things Clinton; so a likely theme in 2020, with Biden as nominee, might be as Breitbart posted;
Schweizer explained, “Joe Biden was the Obama administration’s point-person on policy towards Ukraine. He steered $1.8 billion in aid to that government and while he was doing so, his son got a sweetheart deal with this energy company that — we’ve been able to trace over just a 14-month period — paid $3.1 million into an account where Hunter Biden was getting paid.”
“Suffice to say, Hunter Biden has no background in Ukraine,” Schweizer noted. “He has no background in energy policy. There’s really no legitimate explanation as to why he got this deal with this energy company, other than the fact his father was responsible for doling out money in Ukraine itself.”
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is it a mystery to go from there? How enthused would that theme played beyond a single tweet make you an enthused voter in November 2020 because some MSNBC talking heads in May, 2019, said "electable?" I would be as enthused as if Diane Feinstein were the nominee, and my feeling is she's well past her pull date. Others may view things differently, but Hunter Biden is out there, needing a well crafted explanation beyond "My son and I love him."
If a mood that a stuffed Thanksgiving turkey could beat Trump in 2020 is buzzing around in your head, fine, give it a try. Nothing written here can stop you. I will get the government you deserve.
FURTHER: Hunter Biden, China. A concern.